Are you crazy about selling online? Then you already know the persuasive power of a gorgeous product photo. If you’re in the e-commerce fashion industry, there is an endless list of things to consider when capturing the photos that will represent your apparel online. Choosing the right models, prepping your products, hiring photographers and stylists… And yet one of the most critical aspects comes after the photos have been taken.
In this blog post, we’re taking a close look at photo retouching for fashion retailers. While taking clean shots from the get-go is paramount, the editing process is also a heavy lifter when it comes to getting your photos perfect, and the polish of professional editing will rapidly distinguish the professionals from the amateurs. But retouching doesn’t have to be hard. In this guide, we’ll explore how autoRetouch—an AI-powered photo retouching service—can help you build a successful fashion e-commerce business.
How autoRetouch Can Transform Your E-Commerce Store
autoRetouch leverages a smart AI photo-editing algorithm that, for a fraction of the cost of hiring a photo editor, can transform your product photos into chic, professional marketing images. These are just a few of the benefits you can expect from boosting your retouching game:
1. High-quality images
The quality of images is everything when it comes to e-commerce, because the photos you use represent how you would showcase your products in a physical store. Think of your images as the e-commerce equivalent of styling mannequins, creating window displays, and presenting your apparel on shelves and hangers and it’s clear why mediocre photos will hurt your business and turn away buyers.
2. Professionalism and branding
You may have great marketing copy for your products, but a photo can express much more than text (and much more quickly, too). Retouching your images before sending them off into the internet makes them—and you—look far more credible. In the e-commerce industry, credibility is what turns curious lookers into buyers and is a powerful first step towards building trust and loyalty with your customers.
3. Visually realistic photos
Even great apparel photos can be deceptive when it comes to how the product will actually look and fit in person. According to research, 22% of e-commerce returns are due to photos that don’t reflect the reality of the products. Not only do these returns cut into your bottom line, but customers will see it as a betrayal and be less likely to purchase from you again if they feel that they have been misled by the product photos. But thanks to new techniques made simple by AI photo-editing, it’s now easier than ever to illustrate the real dimensions and fit of your products, which can do wonders for customer satisfaction.
4. Sales drivers
Selling is your prime objective, whether online or offline. For that, you need photos that wow your potential customers. That’s where autoRetouch comes into play. With advanced AI algorithms, it transforms your raw images into pixel-perfect product photos. It also helps you automate complex, repetitive editing tasks and avoid the need to outsource labor to photo editors, so you can focus your time and money on selling. The best part is that photos edited by autoRetouch look natural, so your customers will never know the photos weren’t perfect in the first place.
autoRetouch Features that Make Fashion E-Commerce Easy
1. Background Removal
There are many reasons why you might need to remove the backgrounds from your product photos. You might need to change the background to make the images suitable for use on a particular online retail platform or for branding purposes. Or you might simply dislike the background you chose or find that it doesn’t resonate with shoppers. No matter the reason, you want it to be as quick and easy as possible to fix up your photos, and with autoRetouch’s Background Removal tool, you can do it with one click. The software also specializes in retaining small details, even down to strands of hair, so you won’t lose the quality of your images.
2. Background Customization
Have you ever tried to repurpose your product photos across multiple sales channels? Then you may already know how many different standards and requirements there are for different retailers. So how do marketers get their product photos ready to use on any platform? The answer is background customization through AI.
Capturing custom colors in a studio backdrop is costly, particularly if you have to change the backgrounds for different purposes. And let’s talk about the time it takes to convert the images for every B2B platform. With the Custom Background component, you can update all your image backdrops to match the requirements of each platform with the click of a mouse.
3. Ghost Mannequin Creation
autoRetouch offers the world’s first AI-enabled ghost mannequin generator. The result is a realistic, life-like 3D photo of the apparel that showcases its real-life fit without the distraction of a model or mannequin. It even shows the inside of the garment. The algorithm works by:
- Combining the product image with an inlay photo of the same garment
- Adding warps and shadows to the garment to make it look natural
- Exporting the file as PSD or PNG
Ordinarily, ghost mannequin photos involve a lot of tedious editing work, but with autoRetouch, they can be generated in a few seconds.
4. Skin Retouching
Skin retouching is one of the essential aspects of photo editing. Blemishes, skin imperfections, oil, and other issues must be retouched, but doing so requires a deft touch to avoid making the models look unnatural. On the flip side, glossy skin with extensive makeup shifts the focus from the product to something you weren’t selling in the first place.
This is why retailers need tools that retouch skin naturally. The Skin Retouching component in autoRetouch has been trained on diverse skin data based on people of many ethnicities, ages, and body parts. Unlike other software, this component applies edits only to the skin. This means it won’t turn your models into dolls—this component brings out natural, effortless beauty.
5. Extract Fabric Swatch
Want to showcase your fabric’s pattern, color, and variations? Try the Extract Fabric Swatch tool. This algorithm identifies a fabric swatch free from creases, buttons, or accessories and generates a highly accurate detail view of the fabric. Like the other components we’ve discussed in this post, this is all about creating images that will boost your credibility and increase trust in your buyers.
Bottom Line
With elegant retouching features designed for the fashion industry, autoRetouch converts your e-commerce store into a goldmine for shoppers. You can invest in excellent brand exposure and feel confident that your images will speak for themselves, generating consumer interest and organic traffic. Choosing the cost-friendly AI-enabled service from autoRetouch increases the marketability of your fashion merchandise and guarantees a smooth, seamless post-production stage.